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Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe

Chapters XVIII–XXIII

Chapters XXVIII–XXXI

Summary: Chapter XXIV — We Make Another
Canoe

Crusoe begins to love Friday and, in the course of rudimentary
conversations with him, learns that the cannibals periodically visit
the island. Crusoe also acquires enough geographical information
to locate himself near Trinidad. Crusoe finds out that Friday is
aware of mainland Spaniards who kill many men. Crusoe attempts to
educate Friday in religious matters and finds that his servant easily understands
the notion of God, to whom Friday draws similarities with his own
deity Benamuckee. Friday has more difficulty understanding the devil,
not grasping why God does not rid the world of this evil being permanently,
and Crusoe has trouble answering this question. Crusoe admits that
he lacks the religious knowledge necessary for instructing Friday
in all the aspects of God and the devil. Friday reports that the
cannibals have saved the men from the shipwreck discovered by Crusoe
before Friday’s liberation and that those men are living safely
among the natives now. When Friday expresses a yearning to return
to his country, Crusoe fears losing him, and when Crusoe considers
trying to join the shipwreck survivors, Friday becomes upset and
begs Crusoe not to leave him. Together, the two build a boat in
which they plan to sail to Friday’s land in November or December.

Summary: Chapter XXV — We March Out Against
the Cannibals

My island was now peopled, and I thought
myself very rich in subjects . . . how like a king I looked.

Before Crusoe and Friday have a chance for their voyage
to the cannibals’ land, the cannibals visit Crusoe’s island. Twenty-one
natives come in three canoes to carry out another cannibalistic
attack on three prisoners. Hesitant on moral grounds to kill so
many, Crusoe reasons that since Friday belongs to an enemy nation,
the situation can be construed as a state of war in which killing
is permissible. Approaching the shore, Crusoe observes that one
of the prisoners is a European. Crusoe and Friday fall upon the
cannibals and quickly overcome them with their superior weapons,
allowing only four to escape. Friday is overjoyed to find that another
of the prisoners is his own father. Crusoe and Friday feed the dazed
prisoners and carry them back to Crusoe’s dwelling, where a tent
is erected for them. Crusoe reflects contentedly on the peopling
of his kingdom with loyal subjects.

Summary: Chapter XXVI — We Plan a Voyage
to the Colonies of America

After conversing with his “two new subjects,” Friday’s
father and the Spaniard, Crusoe revisits his earlier dream of returning
to the mainland. Crusoe asks the Spaniard whether he can count on
the support of the remaining men held on the cannibals’ territory.
The Spaniard says yes, but reminds Crusoe that food production would have
to be expanded to accommodate so many extra men. With the help of
his new workers, Crusoe increases his agricultural capacity. He
gives each of the new men a gun.

Summary: Chapter XXVII — We Quell a Mutiny

One day Friday comes running to Crusoe with news that
a boat is approaching the island, and Crusoe, with his spyglass,
discovers it to be English. Crusoe is suspicious. Near the shore,
Crusoe and Friday discover that the boat contains eleven men, three
of whom are bound as prisoners. Friday suspects that the captors
are preparing for cannibalism. When the eight free men wander around
the island, Crusoe approaches the prisoners, who mistake him for
an angel. One prisoner explains that he is the captain of the ship
and that the sailors have mutinied. Crusoe proposes that in exchange
for liberating him and the other two, he and Friday should be granted
free passage to England. The captain agrees and Crusoe gives him
a gun. Crusoe realizes that the other seamen may notice something
wrong and send more men onshore to overpower Crusoe’s men. They
disable the boat to prevent the additional men from escaping.

Sure enough, ten seamen come in from the ship to discover
the boat destroyed. Leaving three in the second boat as watchmen,
the other seven come ashore. Crusoe then sends Friday and another
to shout at the men from various directions, and Crusoe succeeds
in confusing and tiring them so that they are finally separated.
The men in the boat eventually come inland and are overwhelmed by Crusoe’s
stratagems. On behalf of Crusoe, the captain, finally addressing
the remaining men, offers to spare everybody’s life except that
of the ringleader if they surrender now. All the mutineers surrender.
The captain makes up a story that the island is a royal colony and
that the governor is preparing to execute the ringleader the next
day.

Analysis: Chapters XXIV–XXVII

The affectionate and loyal bond between Crusoe and Friday
is a remarkable feature of this early novel. Indeed, it is striking
that this tender friendship is depicted in an age when Europeans
were engaged in the large-scale devastation of nonwhite populations across
the globe. Even to represent a Native American with the individual
characterization that Defoe gives Friday, much less as an individual
with admirable traits, was an unprecedented move in English literature.
But, in accordance with the Eurocentric attitude of the time, Defoe
ensures that Friday is not Crusoe’s equal in the novel. He is clearly
a servant and an inferior in rank, power, and respect. Nevertheless,
when Crusoe describes his own “singular satisfaction in the fellow
himself,” and says, “I began really to love the creature,” his emotional
attachment seems sincere, even if we object to Crusoe’s treatment
of Friday as a creature rather than a human being.

As the bond between Crusoe and Friday becomes stronger,
the similarities between the two men’s cultures gain more importance than
their differences. Crusoe is struck by the ease with which Friday
learns about the Christian God, finding a close resemblance with
the native’s own deity Benamuckee. Friday is less able to understand
the devil, but it is soon revealed that Crusoe does not understand
him perfectly either, when Crusoe admits that he has more “sincerity
than knowledge” in the subject of religious instruction. Crusoe
first believes the savages to be wicked, but we soon learn that the
cannibals have shown an almost Christian charity in saving seventeen
European men from the shipwreck. Moreover, Chapter XXVII, with its
mutiny and scheduled execution, reminds us that Europeans kill their
own kind too, just like Friday’s people. The coincidental numerical
equivalence between the eleven savages arriving in Crusoe’s dream
in Chapter XXII and the eleven Europeans now arriving after the
mutiny is Defoe’s method of emphasizing the similarities between
natives and Europeans. Both groups can be violent and murderous,
yet both groups can also produce individuals—like Crusoe and Friday—who
are kind and good. Generalizing them into the good and the bad,
or the civilized and the wild, proves impossible.

Crusoe’s story, which has until now been mainly about
his own individual survival, takes on a strong political and national
dimension when Crusoe wonders whether he can trust the other sixteen Spaniards—who
are, historically, often enemies of the British—as his comrades-in-arms
against the cannibals. Ironically, it turns out that he can trust
these foreigners much more than he can his own countrymen, the eight
English mutineers he encounters later. Furthermore, the two non-European
cannibal “nations,” as Friday terms them, enlarge this national
dimension. Friday explains that the cannibals do not eat each other
randomly, but that each nation eats only its enemy. Therefore, those
cannibalistic actions that seem steeped in savagery are in fact
governed by political motives. In Chapter XXV, Crusoe is reluctant
to kill the cannibals until he reasons that Friday is in a state
of war, thus making murder permissible. This nationalist thinking
permeates Crusoe’s language too. As usual, our hero’s vocabulary
reveals much about how he imagines his role on the island, and he
starts to describe himself as “generalissimo” of an “army,” with
Friday as his “lieutenant-general.” No longer a mere castaway, Crusoe
now openly refers to himself as a national leader of military forces.
When he refers to his two new guests on the island as his “subjects,”
we sense how deeply ingrained his imagined national role as king
of the island has become.

Ans: Apart from being an exciting account of a man’s adventures on an uninhabited island, the book, “Robinson Crusoe” has been found to possess a profound allegorical significance. For many, Crusoe's many references to God, to Providence, to sin are extraneous to the real interest of the novel. ... Read the full answer at

Answer: The narrator of Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe, has a prominent style of depending on reason. Defoe, as a journalist, makes the novel seem real, not fiction by mentioning many details. There are lists of objects and actions which make the reader think that whatever happens to Crusoe is true. The author produces this impression of complete reality by employing three main methods which are the using of details, the form of biography or the first person narration and the nautical language. >> Read the full answer free at

Answer: Two divergent views have been expressed by critics about the structure of the novel Robinson Crusoe, One view is that this novel is episodic, and lacks fundamental unity. This novel, according to this view, imitates life in its very shapelessness. According to the other view, this novel possesses a thematic unity and has a close-knit structure. >> Read the full answer free at